An impending exit from Chicago awaits Nikola Mirotic, and it wouldn’t be right to send him off without talking about a very important story.

Where the heck is his pump fake? His beloved pump fake. That pump fake was his calling card. It was iconic. It was terrible. It was so bad it was funny. He did it all the time and it never seemed to work.

Mirotic was not above the criticism. He got the joke. And that’s why it’s become virtually dormant through his 17 games played this season.

“Because of the critics,” Mirotic said to me in the Bulls locker room recently, making me feel at least partially responsible. “And you guys have been right about it. Right now, I don’t have too many thoughts about the pump fake.”

I had a chance for some one-on-one time with Mirotic (who has missed the last two games with an illness) before a recent game and he answered my questions about his game directly, with no feints or fake answers.

The key...

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